GRIID End of Year Review Part I – Monitoring Systems of Power and Oppression

This is the first in a three part series, where we will review our coverage over the past year. In today’s post we will look at our reporting and analysis of systems of power and oppression in Grand Rapids.

In Part II we will look at local social movements and the work they have been involved in during the past year. And lastly, in Part III, we will look at our media watchdog coverage where we dissect the local commercial news.

We begin with our 10 piece series looking at the Grand Rapids Power Structure. The first article in the series provides a framework for looking at the local power structure and the 10th article has links to all the previous posts in that series. We also created a visual depiction of the Grand Rapids Power Structure, which you can see at this link.

Of course, a big part of the Grand Rapids Power Analysis is an ongoing look at the DeVos family. We wrote 15 stories in 2018 under the heading, Betsy DeVos Watch, focusing on the policies and actions of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos.

Of course there was much more reporting and analysis of the Grand Rapids Power Structure, but we wanted to note that this should be a central focus of any independent news source, to challenge systems of power and oppression.